


strange how certain the journey

by Chrome



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, As of chapter 2, Conversations, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, One Shot, Resonant Echo (Critical Role), Torture, Warning: Trent Ikithon, Whump, hurt/some comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29864454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome
Summary: "Traces of dunamancy left in his wake...I have my theories on where you might have learned this."Trent Ikithon baits a trap. Essek and Astrid disarm it, and live on borrowed time.
Relationships: Astrid & Caleb Widogast, Astrid & Essek Thelyss, Essek Thelyss & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 90
Kudos: 191





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written in a big rush of feelings after THAT EPISODE, but no actual spoilers for it. Love to the Haven Discord, who told me to post it after I wrote it directly into chat. I did a tiny bit of editing, but this is not actually beta read.
> 
> Marked complete for now, but I have some ideas for a second chapter, so...we'll see.

"What?" the drow asked Astrid, when she lingered. His voice was a low rasp. In the dimness, she couldn't make out his expression, but could feel his eyes on her. The darkness of the cell was probably more of a comfort than light would have been, she reflected, but she wasn't about to point it out to anyone.

It was not a polite tone, but she forgave him it--she knew the way he held his body, so carefully, as any errant move might cause more pain. His wrists were drawn back behind his body, bound in iron, his fingers slick with blood.

"I was going to ask if I could do anything for you," she said, quietly. "Get anything."

She thought he might ask for water, but he looked at her for a long moment and then rasped, "A blade."

"Do you intend to fight me?" she said. Then, "Fight him? You are a fool." She did not need to specify who 'he' was.

"No," he said. "But yes, I am." He said it resignedly. "Do not look so worried." She hadn't meant to start frowning. "I wish to use it on myself. I know you will not help me escape in a kinder way, but—"

"No," she said. "He will know I helped you. Not worth my life. You could cooperate," she offered. "Get out of this alive."

"I am not so much a fool as to believe that," he said. "And no. I am done, being a tool, least of all a weapon against my friends. I know I am the bait of a trap. I intend to disarm it."

"He will know I helped you," she repeated.

"Then lie," he said.

"To him, I—"

"To Caleb," he said. She startled minutely, but he caught it. His eyes were so much better than hers, in the darkness. "You can contact him, can you not?"

"It would be a great risk," she said, not committing.

"But one you will consider," he said. "If it is worth it to you—you will tell him I am dead, and my body is dust. That there is nothing for them here but the trap they surely already know this is."

"Then no one will come for you," she said.

"Good," he said.

"I don't understand," she said.

"You said it is not worth your life," he said. "It is worth mine."

"What is your name?" she asked, after she thought for a long, silent moment. "For the message."

"Essek," he said.

She nodded, then almost caught herself and spoke aloud, then remembered he could see in the darkness. "He will not stop hurting you," she said. "He will do it because he can."

He made no response.

"Are you not afraid?"

"Of course," he said. "But I have greater fears."

He was going to die to keep Bren safe. Astrid envied him it and hated him for it. "Why?" she asked, before she could stop herself. "You will die for them. It is not a risk. It is a certainty."

"It will be the only good thing I have ever done," he replied.

He said nothing else, and asked for nothing else. Eventually, she went and brought him water anyway.

\---

Astrid had enough of her own duties and pain was not her specialty; she did not have to make excuses to avoid watching what they did to Essek each day. She was unsure what drew her back each night, slipping past the guards, holding water to Essek's lips until he swallowed enough that his ruined throat could produce sound again.

"They are safe," she said, the second night.

"Good," he said, but he didn't respond to any of her attempts at conversation.

"I told them as you asked," she said, the third. "They are safe. They will not come."

"Thank you," he said, and that was when he began to answer her, when she spoke.

The conversation that followed was surprisingly scintillating, even as they avoided the finer points of magic. She understood, intellectually, the years of inculcation, the rhetoric, the view of the world that had been hammered into her. It was quite another thing to realize that she still expected a drow to be a dumb beast. Essek was brilliant, when he could be coaxed into real discussion. He had surely been a talented arcanist—had been, after the fourth day, when they cut his fingers down to bone.

Astrid was used to seeing suffering, the aftermath of torture. Still, her gorge rose when she saw the ruined flesh bound uselessly behind him, the picture of pointless cruelty. "They are safe," she said, again. This time she added, "I am sorry."

He shrugged. "I have made my choices."

Still, he had nothing else to say to her that night. They spoke again the fifth, when he sat contorted, forcing his arms further back to keep the pressure from his flayed back. She did all the talking the sixth, when his throat was nearly too swollen to take any water, let alone speak.

Trent was growing angrier as his trap failed to catch its prey. Astrid felt it more directly than anyone but Essek, who had it taken out on his flesh. A matter of time, she thought, before he was broken beyond saving; a matter of time before Trent gave up.

She was surprisingly sad at the thought.

\---

“Do you think it is possible,” he asked her on the seventh night, “to go back in time?” His clothes were so ragged by then that she could see the burns that had been left on him, ragged bloody sores, the edges of the skin blackened. It impressed her that he was still so coherent, although of course there were hours to pull himself together between what was done to him and Astrid creeping down to bear witness.

She no longer felt that this was merely bearing witness. There was a strange anticipation that buzzed about her all day. She found herself hoping his wounds would not be too grave not merely to spare him the pain, or even to spare herself seeing it, but because she disliked when it disrupted their ability to speak. The burns were obviously painful, but he seemed much in possession of himself.

“Fairy tales,” she said, and watched his mouth twitch into a semblance of a smile. “You do not think so?”

“It has,” he said, with the air of conveying a secret—which she supposed he was—“been done. Without, I admit, real success. But it is surely possible.”

“Your people have time magic,” she said.

He nodded. “It is called chronurgy,” he said. “And it is a hobby of mine, if not strictly speaking my main field of study.”

He no longer twitched the twisted mass that were once hands, when he spoke of magic. It was possible that he had resigned himself, but Astrid thought it more likely when she looked at the shattered bone and rent muscle, remains of fingertips beginning to rot, that he had simply lost feeling in them.

“Then you believe it is possible,” she said.

“I know it is possible,” he said. “I will not live to see it done, but someone shall.”

“What would you undo?” she said. “If you went back in time?”

“A good question,” he said. “Too many choices lead into another for me to properly answer, I think. I do not know how I would undo my sins without also undoing all I have gained. What about you?”

Astrid had never properly thought of it before, but the possibilities sprang up. She could have spared Bren, somehow, kept him sane—how? And that would have left him as trapped as the rest of them. Slipped back and killed Ikithon when he did not expect it, perhaps—when he was less powerful? How many years back would she need to go? Had he done anything between then and the present she would not wish to undo? Could others be worse?

“A good question,” she echoed his own words back.

He grinned at her. His teeth were bloodied. “It is lucky it is all theoretical, as no one would have the slightest idea what to do with it.”

She found herself smiling back, without meaning to. “Do you think you could work it out, given time?”

“The problem of what to do?”

“The magic,” she said.

“Hmm,” he said. “That is the trouble, I think. I always think I can work it out.”

“Have you?” she said.

“This, not yet,” he said. “Or else I have done a remarkably poor job of it, to still end up here.”

“Worked everything else out,” she said.

“In general,” he said. “Yes. I am afraid I cannot demonstrate.”

“A shame,” she said, and meant it.

“If you ever resolve your problems,” he somehow said it in a way that made it clear he meant ‘kill Trent Ikithon’, “and find yourself on the same side as Caleb such that he feels able to share with you some magic, ask him to teach you a spell called Resonant Echo.”

“What does it do?” she said.

“Should the time come, you will find out,” he said. “And consider it my thanks for the company.”

“Do you think,” she started to say.

“Tomorrow or the day after,” he said, eyes distant, “I suspect. And I may not be good company, even if I live beyond it.”

They sat in silence for a while. When she finally had to get up to go at the changing of the guard, he said, “Go in the Light, Astrid.”

She did not know the precise meaning, but she parsed the statement as the well-wish and the farewell it was. “Go in the Light, Essek,” she repeated back. His eyes reflected the torchlight back at her when she took one last look at him through the cell door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm [catalists](http://catalists.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr and [@chromecatalists](https://twitter.com/chromecatalists/) on Twitter.
> 
> If you can, please leave a comment--they mean a lot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Where does it come from, the energy?”_
> 
> _"It is—potentiality. The timelines that never were, you can pull a bit of them before they dissipate. Harness the power of the world that did not come to be."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love to [capitola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/capitola) for the quick beta and [Star](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardreamertwo) who let me DM this to her in chunks in the cruelest order possible.

The discoloration of bruises were less visible against drow skin, but the swelling was very clear. Astrid guessed that the only reason Essek was still upright on the eighth night was that no position would have really alleviated the pain.

“How do you feel about company?” she asked.

“I am still a fair conversationalist,” he replied.

She came in with the water. It had felt awkward the first time, Astrid unsure what to do or where to look, the drow’s face darkening with shame. Now it was a familiar thing, to hold the cup to his lips.

“What would you like to talk about?” she asked, as she set the cup aside. There was little finesse to the injuries, today. He had simply been angry and wanted Essek to hurt for it.

Essek had been right—not much time left.

“What we have in common,” Essek said. For a terrible moment, she thought he was going to say  _ Bren _ , but instead he said, “Magic, of course.”

“You never did explain what your spell did,” Astrid said.

“Impatient,” he said.

“It could be many years before I find out,” she said.

“And won’t it be a wonderful mystery?” he said.

“I could hardly reverse-engineer it,” she said. “The concept, at least.”

For a moment she thought he would refuse to answer, and then he said, “An echo, of yourself. Weaker, but with some of the same capabilities.”

“What do you mean by an echo?”

“It is as a shadow,” he said. “Your people must have fought some of our warriors who have their own—this is an adaptation based on the concept.”

She nodded. “Where does it come from, the energy?”

"It is—potentiality. The timelines that never were, you can pull a bit of them before they dissipate. Harness the power of the world that did not come to be."

It was an intriguing prospect. It also sent a shiver through her.

He noticed. "Does that frighten you?"

She almost lied, but what did it matter? Any truths she spoke now would die in this cell. "A little," she admitted. "It does not scare you?"

"No," he said. "It gives me hope."

"Hope?" she said, startled.

"All the people you did not become, bent to serve the one you did? Each choice, another world away from who you could have been—as long as I can pull another me from the air, it is not too late to change. To use our worse selves in the service of a better one."

"It can go the other way, too," she said. "What if you are drawing from a better world? And this is the worse one?"

"Then you will make another choice tomorrow," Essek replied.

“The world could get even worse,” she said.

“It could,” he agreed. “Or it might become better.”

“Do you think it often does?” she said.

“I have been thinking on this,” Essek said. “I think we often make choices. I think the world must change just as frequently, and we must change with it. You are not the person you were ten years ago, I would guess.”

“No,” Astrid said. “I am not.”

“But five minutes ago—you might be her, or close to it.”

“I suppose.”

“When did you change, then?”

“Sometime in the middle,” she said.

“All at once?”

“Of course not.”

“Of course not,” he echoed. “Are you better than you were before?”

She stared at him. “I don’t know.”

“What would have made you better or worse? Making better choices?”

“Define better,” Astrid said.

“Depends on who for,” he said. “Which, I think, is also my answer.” When she looked at him, lost, he said, “Do I think the world often becomes better, you asked.”

“Depends on who for,” she said. “And for you?”

“I think the future is clear enough,” Essek said. “But on the whole, I think it’s been—let us call it an upward trajectory.”

“Do you regret it?” she blurted. “Telling me to lie to them.”

Essek shrugged. “Ask me tomorrow.”

\---

On the ninth night, Essek lay curled on his side with his back to the bars of the cell. Astrid's heart caught in her throat for a moment, before he stirred at her footsteps. He couldn't lift himself to look back at her; she stepped around him carefully and knelt on the other side. 

His lips moved, but no sound came out, and she couldn't tell what he was trying to say.

"Here." She tried to give him the water, but it dribbled back out of his mouth, tinged pink with blood. He flinched away when she tried again. "Alright," she said. She tried to sound soothing, but it came out clipped. "No water."

His breath came in shallow, wet gasps; when she looked closer, she could see that his torso was the wrong shape, bones crushed, ribs in the wrong positions. The leg underneath him had too many bends in it. He was still shackled—an absurdity. This crumpled, contorted body was barely a parody of life.

He tried to speak, again. This time she could make out a few words. "...see...sunrise."

She slotted them into different orders and then guessed. "I don't think you will, no."

He blinked, long and slow. A tiny nod. Another wet gasp of breath.

"I will stay," she said. "If you want."

He nodded, again.

It felt odd to be crouched alongside him. Astrid consciously resettled herself to sit cross-legged. Then, on some ancient impulse, she edged forward and levered his head into her lap. He shuddered with the pain of movement, but it seemed to subside quickly. He relaxed against her legs.

"Bren and I used to sit like this, when we studied." She said it in Zemnian, so of course Essek couldn't understand it, but he didn't seem to mind. His eyes had gone glassy and distant, anyway. "He liked fairy tales, when we were young. Would you like to hear one now?"

Essek simply continued to breathe painfully. "This one is called The Cat Prince."

Astrid spoke for a long time. Eventually, her hand settled in his hair, and she combed through it a few times. It was a strange texture, although she couldn't tell how much of that was merely grime. Essek's eyes slid shut, and then he became even more alien, not an elf but a twisted broken thing struggling for air.

Eventually she finished the story, and the cell was silent. The wet rattle of his breath, too, had vanished.

Essek was gone.

She shifted backwards, freeing herself from his corpse, but catching his head and gently lowering it to the ground. When she stood, he didn't look like anyone anymore, not a friend of Bren's, not an arcanist, not even a drow enemy. Just a thing, broken, as she had broken so many things.

The brilliance that had lit him from the inside was gone, and the spark of something that had drawn Astrid to the cell night after night had gone with it.

Astrid wanted to do something, say something, but she had no idea what. If Eodwulf had been there, she might have asked him to invoke the Matron. But Astrid wasn't religious, herself. And she had no idea what the Kryn did with their dead. No idea who Essek might have thought of, in his last moments, or how his people might have treated his body.

She knew only what little he had said to her. She knew nothing.

"Go in the light, Essek," she murmured.

Then Astrid left him, left the dungeon, stumbled out into the moonlight and slumped back against the wall of the building. She stood there, breathing in the cold morning air, and watched the sunrise that he did not live to see.

\---

On the ninth night, Essek lay curled on his side with his back to the bars of the cell. Astrid's heart caught in her throat for a moment, before he stirred at her footsteps. He couldn't lift himself to look back at her; she stepped around him carefully and knelt on the other side. 

His lips moved, but no sound came out, and she couldn't tell what he was trying to say.

“Save your strength,” she ordered. “You will need it.” Her heart thumped too loud in her ears. She withdrew the first bottle, the liquid in it blood-red, and brought it to his lips. When it started to dribble back out of his mouth, she tilted his head back and pressed fingers to his throat, massaging until he swallowed. She couldn’t tell if he was simply too weak to fight her or understood what she was trying to do. She had to force down the next swallow, too, but the third went easier, and by the time the bottle was empty his throat worked without her prodding.

The rattle of death was gone from his breathing, but she had done nothing but prolong the inevitable—his legs were twisted, his ribs shattered and out of place. The smell of rot from what had once been hands was unmistakable. He knew it, too, and regarded her warily.

“This isn’t mercy,” he said. A simple statement of fact, but also a question.

“This is foolish and dangerous,” she said flatly. She pulled the amulet from her pocket and swiftly hooked it around his neck.

“My favorite,” Essek said. His shoulders drew forward. She realized he wanted to examine it, but couldn’t.

“Attune to that,” she ordered. Then she withdrew the second bottle. The liquid in this one was dark amber. “The chemist thought this would put you to sleep,” she said. “It isn’t magic, but I haven’t tested it.”

He eyed it. “The alternative?”

“I put a silencing spell on you when I move you.”

He winced. “The potion.”

“Attune to that. Then we go.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Where are you, now?”

“I,” Astrid said, “Have been arrested by the Cobalt Soul.”

“Convenient,” Essek said. “During which time…”

“There will be a terrible explosion here,” she said. “I am not sure if Trent will be called to deal with it before he goes to demand my release, but either way, I was not here tonight.”

“And your counterpart?”

So much of Essek’s expression and tone were dictated by his injuries that Astrid couldn’t tell if it was concern or pure curiosity. Perhaps it was both. “He is away. He will not be implicated.”

“Where are we going?”

“Not far.” Not if things went according to plan.

“You planned quickly.”

“No,” she said. “I didn’t.”

Essek went quiet after that. She went to work as he attuned to the amulet, setting the explosive charges, modeled on ones that the Halfling woman had used before. Making sure they’d catch the torches and leave plenty of echoes of Bren’s signature fire. She carefully removed the shackles from Essek’s wrist, surprised when he didn’t react and then realizing that the flesh immediately beneath the metal was black and dead.

“How bad is it?” he asked lightly.

Bad. The worst thing she could imagine happening to her. “Depends on how powerful the cleric is,” she said instead of answering.

He just looked resigned. Astrid couldn’t look him in the face for very long; she went back to rechecking her preparations. A few minutes after that, he said, “It is done.”

She uncorked the bottle and held it to his lips. “We will see if this works.” The alternative was bad.

He drank. It went faster than the healing potion, but not much. When she had returned the emptied vial to her cloak, he said, “When did you decide?”

“Last night,” she said.

“Why?”

Astrid couldn’t answer him; she wasn’t sure herself. She was spared from answering as his eyes slipped shut and he went limp against the floor of the cell. She held a hand to his mouth to check, and finally exhaled herself when she felt his breath against her palm.

She was not the strongest individual, but Essek was small, and with him firmly unconscious she was able to roll him onto a blanket without much sound. Astrid folded his limp arms across his chest; there was little to do about his legs, but she tried not to contort them further as she wrapped the fabric up tightly. With a spell, she lifted the whole bundle with ease and slipped out the way she had done the last eight nights, stopping only to light a long fuse.

Her heartbeat was loud in her ears again when she got out into the cold night air and wound her way through the familiar streets. It was Jester and Beauregard waiting for her in the alley, but even without looking for them she knew the others would not be far.

She handed the bundle to Jester, who took it before she realized the weight and had to readjust. “Oh my god, did you kill somebody? Is it a dead body?”

“Not yet,” she said, then added, “Be gentle.” Then she turned to go.

“Hey,” Beau said behind her. “If this is a fucking trap—“

“You would already be arrested.”

“I meant whatever the hell you gave us.”

“Then your friend will conveniently have me in custody,” said Astrid. Counting on the party’s need to get out of Rexxentrum directly to prevent them from making a fuss, she pulled up her hood and made for the Cobalt Soul.

No one followed her. She made it three streets before she realized, with some regret, that she hadn’t given Essek a proper goodbye.

\---

Astrid leaned against the bookshelf and watched Caleb at work. Behind him, bright squares of colored light illuminated the floor. In the rebuilt Soltryce Academy, half the wall of the main atrium was taken up by long windows of stained glass, each school of magic represented in the images. She studied the one on the far end. It was predominately violet, and the images had been unfamiliar to her when he’d had it made: a series of fractals, Undercommon runes, a purple hand holding a pearl.

She fixed her eyes on the last image for a moment, and then spoke. "I have a confession," Astrid said.

"Oh?" Caleb looked up, smiling, and then he saw her expression. "A real one?"

"Before," she hastened to say. "It is not a new thing, but—"

He interrupted. "We have both done a great deal we regret, Astrid. You do not need to give me a full accounting of your sins. I hope after this long we can accept we have not always done good in the world."

She shook her head. "The world, but this is what I have done to you."

His expression grew a bit warier. There were lines around his eyes and his mouth now, and a grey streak in the strands of hair that framed his face. Somehow, they had lived long enough to grow old. "Do you want to sit down?"

She shook her head. It was easier to say it on her feet, able to run, although she already knew she wouldn't. "Your friend, who Trent killed."

"You will have to be a little more specific," Caleb said. Sorrow and a little black amusement flashed across his face.

"The—" she wanted to say  _ the drow _ but her mouth found the name anyway. "Essek." Just saying it brought back the smell of blood and bile on damp stone, the way his eyes caught and reflected light in the darkness, that strange grin. Nine days, fifteen years ago, and it took so little to bring it all back, to wonder about the way that fate fragmented and branched outwards. To wonder if she could have turned on the path a little sooner.

"Essek," Caleb said, grief heavy in his voice. His eyes, too, flashed to the last window. "Yes. What about him?"

"I told you Trent caught him," she said. "That was true. I also told you Trent killed him with a Disintegrate spell. That was not."

"What?" Caleb said.

"It was his lie, not mine," she said. "He thought you would come after him."

"We would have, we were already, when you Sent that message—" Caleb cut himself off. "Trent captured him, he did not die?"

"He did," Astrid said.

Caleb wet his lips with his tongue. He knew Trent too well for Astrid's statement to be taken any other way. "How long?"

"Nine days."

" _ Scheiss _ ," Caleb spat. He turned away.

"If it helps, at all," her own throat felt raw, as she spoke. "He did not die alone."

"That—" Caleb's hands covered his face. They did not conceal the tears streaking down it, nor did she think he was trying. "A little. A little, yes."

She stood there and let him weep silently.

"Why now?" Caleb asked, finally. "It has been—why are you telling me this now?"

"He—Essek—he told me to ask you about something," she said. "But it did not feel right if I didn't tell you the whole story, and..." she trailed off helplessly. And what? And she was a coward? And she was not ready to think of it? And she had been dealing with each shard of guilt one at a time so she did not cut herself too badly, and this one had been too present and personal to handle until now? "I finally became too curious to put it off." That was true enough.

"Curiousity," Caleb said. "Well, Essek would have approved."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"I am—" Caleb shook his head. "To think, we might have saved him." His eyes were very distant.

She shook her head. "Trent kept him close. It would have been—you cannot know the danger—"

"We killed him in the end," Caleb said. "We might have a little sooner. I would have risked it."

"He was afraid you would," Astrid said.

"Essek," Caleb said, and buried his face in his hands again. Eventually he said, a little muffled, "What did he tell you to ask me?"

“A spell,” she said. “Called Resonant Echo.”

“He did like you,” Caleb said, with some surprise. He reached for his spellbook, flipping through it.

“Is it very good?” Astrid wondered. “He said it—drew a copy of yourself, from another timeline that did not come to be.” It had been that part that stuck with her.

“Well, it has some uses,” Caleb said, pausing on one of the pages. “But it was one of his spells.”

Astrid blinked, uncomprehending.

“He wrote it,” Caleb said. He smiled sadly and lowered the open book back to the table. “And as far as I know, I am the only wizard alive who still has it in his spellbook. There has been much exchange of Dunamancy since, but this—this one I do not teach. It did not feel right, without permission.”

“You don’t—“ she started to say, but he cut her off.

“It appears I have it now. Essek began with a practical demonstration.” He sorted through his pockets as he spoke. Eventually he withdrew a piece of obsidian. He drew a line through the air with the obsidian, and from the strange dark gash left behind, a shadow poured out.

The shadow stood. It was Caleb, and Astrid couldn’t help but search the dark face for some sign of variation. Did the version of Caleb in this other world have the same lines on his face? Did he grieve as deeply as this Caleb did?

It was impossible to tell. She reached out a hand, but let it drop before she could make contact.

“What can it do?” she asked.

“It can cast one spell,” Caleb said. “Then it will vanish.”

“Otherwise?”

“It is easy to destroy,” Caleb said. Something complicated flickered across his face, and Astrid was only certain that  _ sadness  _ was a part of it. “So, keep it safe.”

\---

The sun was still low on the horizon, leaving the sky dusky pink over the sea, when Astrid arrived in Nicodranas. She had written out the directions and carried them with her, even though she had the address memorized. The apartments were not ostentatious, but well-kept, and the neighborhood was pleasant. The metal knocker was shaped like an anchor, copper tarnishing to green, and she seized it and rapped quickly before she could second-guess herself.

The door swung open seemingly of its own accord. As light spilled into the darkened interior, she caught the reflection of a pair of eyes.

“Astrid,” Essek said. “It is good to see you again.”

“It is,” her voice caught in her throat. “Good to see you as well.” She realized with a shock she had never seen him standing before. He was shorter than she’d expected. His clothes were a mix of the Kryn style and something more appropriate to the coast, a light weave in pale lavender but still in a Xhorhassian cut, high-collared and long-sleeved. 

Her gaze went to, without consciously willing it, to his hands.

Deliberately, he lifted them, letting the sleeves fall back. His fingers spread apart easily, ink-stained but uninjured. But on both arms—about an inch above his left wrist and nearly halfway to the elbow on the right—there was a jagged band of scar tissue.

Astrid realized, with some fascination, that the necrosis must have reached that far—and that was where Jester or more likely Caduceus had amputated.

“Come in,” Essek said. “I am afraid you are early and Caleb is still asleep.”

“Up late working?” Astrid guessed.

Essek nodded. “It is hard to tear yourself away partway.”

“You’re awake,” she pointed out, following him inside.

A flash of fang in his smile as he shut the door. “I need less rest.”

Astrid had purposefully drawn no judgments when she had been invited to visit, and she could not be sure of it now. Still, everything about it—Essek’s casual statement about Caleb’s sleeping habits, the casual intimacy of the way their things mingled on the bookshelf—made her feel glad and jealous all at once.

“Would you like tea?”

“I’m alright, but thank you,” she said. She settled her teeth against her lip, unsure how to broach the subject.

“I understand,” Essek said, eyes glinting. “This is not a social call.”

“It—is,” she said, hastily.

“Not purely, yes?” Essek said. “Caleb gets the same look. I do owe you a spell, I remember.”

Astrid had wondered how clearly he might recall it. She knew memory had a way of folding in on itself and making itself small when it was full of pain, and the days in which she had met Essek had been nothing but it. “Resonant Echo.”

“Indeed.” He flicked a hand and his spell book slid from the air into his hand. He turned to the page immediately, and then Astrid was sure he had guessed that she might ask.

“I wouldn’t mind tea,” she said, belatedly reaching for her manners. It was early, after all.

“Are you worried about being rude?” he asked. “I can excuse impatience in the name of curiosity. It is a flaw we share.”

“I have just walked into your home,” she demurred. “If it is a little early for lessons…”

“Now is fine,” Essek said. “What is it you say? There is no time like the present.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm [catalists](http://catalists.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr and [@chromecatalists](https://twitter.com/chromecatalists/) on Twitter.
> 
> If you can, please leave a comment--they mean a lot.


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